Once Upon a Time in Mexico
by AragothwinElfBlade
Summary: If they were both alive, maybe it would work. Crossover with L&O: SVU


_Left alone to cry_

_While he goes out singing,_

_And she don't see why_

_A wedding bell ain't ringing._

_Left alone to cry_

_While he goes out rocking,_

_And she can't see why_

_It ain't her he's socking._

_Goodbye, pretty blue eyes._

_Goodbye, pretty blue eyes._

_Left alone to cry;_

_Life don't seem worth living._

_I stand to say goodbye,_

_Done enough forgiving._

_Goodbye, pretty blue eyes._

_Goodbye, pretty blue eyes_.

_Pretty Blue Eyes by Erin Clapton_

* * *

She called him 'blue-eyes.' Her urban accent soothed him in a way little else did. Without being asked, she ignored the track marks on his arm and the scars on his body. In turn he never asked about why she spoke with educated clarity and an orator's precision of tone.

He called her 'pretty girl.' No one else had ever dared to speak about her like that to her face. There were no questions about why she was here from him. So, she never asked who he really was.

They clung together amid the sea of the rest of the world. Neither really talking, both always hiding. No questions were asked if one of them woke screaming, nor if the other woke alone in her bed. And it was always her bed. He didn't have a bed any more than he had a home.

Even though it was little more than a dream, she hoped that he could stay with her. In this place were neither was real, or at least not a real person, she hoped he could make her more than a fragment of herself. But he was little more than a shard of his shattered self as well and could offer her nothing more than his body.

When he left she cried. He rolled out of bed and began to dress, keeping his back towards her. Propped up on one elbow she watched him and wept. Knowing without being told this was the last time she would see him. The only thing he took from the room was the worn bag he'd arrived with.

Wrapped in the sheet, she followed him to the kitchen and sat on one of the rickety chairs as he made several sandwiches to put in the bag. Rationally, she knew he was a temporary thing and couldn't stay. Hope sprang eternal, despite this place, so she cried silently and rocked herself as he spread the peanut butter with his fingers.

They stood together staring through the open door. The wane moonlight reflected off the graying sheet and the dull cream of his shirt. "Good-bye," she told him formally, distantly, as he was a business acquaintance with whom a transaction had been completed. Guilt shone in his eyes as he saw the stoniness of her tear-streaked face and the steel in her gaze. He kissed her, gently, affectionately, like a lover, on the stoop of the cantina in the little Mexican town. Pulling away, he turned and began to walk down the street towards the main road and out of her life. She stood there in that place, long after he had disappeared.

Two months later she is Tijuana for the day to argue with her supplier. She takes the opportunity to make a short call from one of the cities many anonymous phone booths. In New York a good friend takes the message. By the end of the day, there is an e-mail with an attachment in an untraceable e-mail accountant. She sips cheap coffee as she reads the attachment on a public computer. All sixteen pages are printed on the library's printer and tucked into a manila before the e-mail is deleted and the e-mail account closed.

Later that evening, when she is alone in the room of a cleaner hotel, she cries again for him. Not because he left, but because he came, she weeps without shame. She only wishes she could have been what he had needed, knowing she could never be. After the tears have dried, she burns the papers in the folder and hopes he will see her as herself someday, rather than the broken pieces she is.

When he checks in, he makes a request. The next day he logs into an e-mail account using a stolen laptop he plans to return later. There is only one message in the inbox. He reads it eagerly, his curiosity finally sated. It is hard to reconcile the words with his own knowledge, but at the same time it is so easy he feels like he should have known. Through it all, he wishes she could have met him while they were both alive.

When he's finished, he deletes the e-mail. The laptop is tossed on the ground and smashes with a satisfying crack. He knows it's vindictive, but he hates the world right now. Walking away from the scene of his vandalism, he is amazed what liberties she let him take with her. He wonders if he can see her again, and if he does, can they have a life?

In New York, Olivia Bensen looks at the case file in her hands, but sees someone else. Elliot, her partner, lays one of his broad hands on her shoulder. She drops the file to grasp it, biting her lip to keep from crying. His eyes are damp as he watches her. She misses Alex so damn much, and her loneliness is hurting him.

Alone in the CTU, Chloe only has eyes for her screen as the empty office fills with the clacking of her keyboard. During his last check-in, Jack had made a strange request and she had indulged him. She wonders if her caution has paid off, and none of her superiors know about the personal file she had sent to him. Why he asked for it, she doesn't know and doesn't want to. Pulling herself away from these emotion based thoughts, she takes comfort in the logical rationality of her computers.

* * *

Author's Note: I feel the need to justify this story, seeing as it's a little confusing if you're not familiar with Law and Order: SVU and 24. (L&O: SVU) DA Alex Cabbot went into Witness Protection after a Columbian drug lord tried to kill her.She faked her own death, but told her two friends Detectives Olivia Bensen and Elliot Stabler she was alive. Seeing how she doesn't really like or trust the US Marshalls, I went ahead and had her run to Mexico and gave her a cantina to run so she would have something to do. (24) Jack Bauer fakes his own death so he can live in peace. Chloe O'Brian remains in contact with him. The show has him walking off into the sunset, so I sent him down to Mexico too. Hence, the remarkable 24/L&O:SVU crossover. 


End file.
